


An Errand in the Night

by QueSeraAwesome



Series: Domestic AU [7]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Asexual Agent Maine, Demisexual Wash, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Male Friendship, Romantic Fluff, RvB Fluff Week, Sleepy Cuddles, Walk Into A Bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 20:25:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11260335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueSeraAwesome/pseuds/QueSeraAwesome
Summary: Maine has a proposal to make. He needs a favor from a friend.





	An Errand in the Night

**Author's Note:**

> prompted by akisawana for Fluff Week: can i ask for Domestic AU for fluff week? because i love maine and wash being parents and being not-having-sex and being post-war and awesome

Maine shoulders his way into the bar, scarf tucked up around his ears. The warmth (and smell) of too many bodies sweeps over him, the heady smell of beer trailing after it. There’s a couple of yelled greetings from a few regulars. The on-duty bartender beckons him and he makes his way over, the crowd parting and closing behind him amiably.

“You don’t work tonight,” Sanjit says, raising an eyebrow at him. The “So why the hell are you here?” goes unsaid, but unsubtly implied.

“Need to talk to Jay,” he says. “You know the hours he keeps.”

“Fair enough,” Sanjit shrugs. “Whatcha’ drinking, big guy?”

“Water,” Maine says, “Can’t stay long.”

Sanjit sends him a judging look, but passes him a glass of water anyway.

Maine nods a thank you and makes for the booth along the west wall, third from the back. Jay’s seat.

Jay is a large man (though not nearly as large as Maine), broad in a pudgier kind of way. Brown, red and gray tangle for dominance in his short beard. His hands are rough from work, but nimble in the way of a craftsman, which is what he is. He’s absent-mindedly sketching something on the table with his finger as he reads a book. He looks up as Maine’s shadow falls across the table, unconcerned, and puts the book aside once he realizes who it is.

“Hey, what the hell’re you doing here on your day off?” he asks.

“Wanted to ask you something,” Maine says, sliding into the booth across from him. “Looking for help on a project.”

Jay pretends he’s not intrigued.

“Depends. What's the project?”

Maine reaches inside his coat pocket and pulls out something small and solid.

A hunk of metal, placed carefully on the tabletop. He reaches in another pocket and pulls out a bag, empties a few thick, curved shards onto the table. Jay goes for the metal first. It’s small, his fist fitting easily around it. Most of it is all jagged-cut edges; wherever it came from, it did not come free easy. One edge, though, is smooth, shiny, like white marble, or some sort of polymer.

Jay clucks his tongue in disapproval,  squinting at the thing.

“Dude, do you even know what this is? Or what it’s made of?” he asks.

“Titanium “ Maine replies instantly. Winces. “Mostly titanium.”

“Do you have any idea how hard titanium is to work with?” Jay grouses. “And that's plain titanium, who knows what kind of space-tech you hacked this off of or what's it alloyed with. What kind of coating is this?” He asks, scratching at the smooth white side with a thumbnail.

Maine shrugs.

“Can you do it?”

“Fuck you, I will find a way,” Jay retorts, but without heat, still engrossed in his inspection. “Asshole. And I don't even know what  _ that _ is!” he whines, gesturing unhappily at the shards on the table.

“Mostly glass,” Maine replies.

“Glass, huh?” he asks, setting down the titanium to pick up the biggest of the shards, turning it over and over in his hands. One side refracts crazily off the bar lights, glaring his eyes. He turns it over and sets it down again.

“I got a buddy at the shop I work out of who does glass, he could help with that I guess,” he says. “Maybe do some kind of inlay, I’ll have to ask him. I don’t know shit about pre-worked glass.”

Maine grunts, taking a gulp of his water. Jay picks up the hunk of metal again, white and metal chasing each other under his fingers.

“Yeah. I mean, I’ll try, man,” he says, picking at the white side of the chunk again. “’S there a particular reason you gotta make it with this st–”

He stops, mouth hanging mid-word. Maine watches the thoughtful grooves slowly form between his eyebrows, growing deeper and deeper. Realization hits. He shoves back in his seat, like he can escape the thought if he only gets far enough away from it. Shoves until his spine’s flush with the backrest, little mound of metal cradled in his fingers as he glares at Maine in shocked fury.

“ _ No _ ,” he says.

Maine nods, twist of a grin starting to creep into the corner of his mouth.

“No,” he repeats. “No way they let you. You couldn’t have. You’re shitting me.”

Maine shrugs. Jay gapes at him.

“Christ,” he says. “Christ, Maine, you can't let me work with this!” Jay tries to push the metal back at Maine across the table, but Maine wards him off.

“Already did,” he insists. “Can you do it?”

“How did you even get it?” Jay sputters.

A rare full smile flickers over Maine’s face.

“Long story.”

“Fuck.” Jay drags his hand down his face. “You're sure?”

He picks up the little hunk of metal again, his fingers careful and almost reverent now that he knows what it is.   


“Who knows what kinda shit’s up in there,” he mutters to himself. “Wake up in an ONI interrogation room. Is it too late to plead the fifth about where this came from?”

Maine doesn’t bother trying to respond, just lets Jay bitch himself out at his own pace. Finally, he sighs, sets the piece of metal back down on the table with an air of finality.

“You realize this is not a lot of material, right?” he asks. “So, whatever it is you’re wanting me to make better be small.”

Maine nods. Jay keeps looking between him and the fragment of titanium sitting innocently on the table between them, a considering expression on his face. Maine just waits for him to admit that what they both already know he’s decided. Jay’s the not kind of guy to pass up a fun project— especially if the working definition of “fun” means “hideously complicated.”

“Alright,” Jay eventually says, leaning back in his seat. “Yeah, I’ll do it. Whatja want made again?”

Maine takes another sip of water.

“Ring,” he says.

He sets his glass down silently and folds his hands together on the table, the very picture of serenity.

Jay stares. He stares some more. And some more.

“A …. a ring?”

Maine nods, a twitch to his eyebrow giving away he's kind of amused by Jay’s reaction.

“A…” Jay slaps a hand on the table, making the shards bounce. “Fuck you, you fucking  _ fuck _ . Did you just ask me to help you make an engagement ring?”

“That a no?” Maine asks, eyes laughing at him.

“Fuck you,” Jay says. “I hate you, you bastard. I'm buying you a drink, top shelf.”

“I don't drink,” Maine reminds him.

“I am buying you a virgin mudslide the size of your face.”

Maine actually snorts. A mudslide the size of  _ his _ face is pretty big.

“Not tonight,” he says. “I don’t want to get back too late.”

“Have you asked him yet?” Jay asks, leaning forward eagerly and dropping his voice like now they’re talking about classified UNSC secrets, and not Maine’s personal life. “Does anyone else know?”

“No,” Maine replies, answering both questions in one. “Wanna have the ring first.”

Jay winces, fiddling with the chunk of metal again.

“This could take a while,” he says, but not without an undercurrent of apology. “Are you sure?”

Maine nods.

“We have time.”

Jay grabs a napkin, pulls a pen out of his pocket.

“This is gonna be low tech, but I left my pad at home,” he says, beginning a sketch. “I didn't think I'd need it tonight.”

He puts down the pen and pushes both it and the napkin across the table to Maine.

“Okay. Show me what you're thinking,” he says. “Throw your impossibly complicated sentimental romantic fuckery on me.”

Maine takes the pen, starts to draw.

*

The house isn’t as warm as the bar, but smells infinitely better. Maine hangs his coat in the hall, checks in on the kids before padding to his and Wash’s room. There’s a glow settled down below his breastbone, like he swallowed the flame of a small candle. Jay said it might take a while, but Maine can be patient. For this.

He has time.

Maine shuts the door behind him, undresses in the dark. He slides in next to Wash, skin to skin under a small mound of blankets, the night soft as silk around them. Wash instinctively curls in towards him in his sleep, and Maine wraps an arm around him. Breathes in the smell of Wash, and their bed, and their home. Wash stirs against him.

“Maine?” Wash mumbles sleepily. “What time is it?”

“Late,” he whispers back. “Had to run in to work.”

Wash’s forehead crinkles in barely-conscious confusion at him.

“It's your vacation week?”

“Had to give something to a friend.” Maine says, smoothing a hand down the planes of his back. “Night owl. Go back to sleep.”

Wash sighs out a yawn, still squinting at him confusedly in the dark. Maine feels the little candle in his chest go soft around the edges, even as it fills him clear out to his ribs. He has time. He has so much time.

Maine kisses him, dry and warm. Pulls away before Wash wakes up enough to really respond.

“Sleep,” he says.

“You sleep,” Wash mutters petulantly into his neck. He tightens his grip on Maine for emphasis.

Maine falls asleep to the press of Wash’s grip holding him close, to the gentle wafts of Wash’s breath fanning across his neck, to the steady thud-thudding of his own heart, beating strong in his chest.


End file.
